


Night Shift

by WriterWhoWrites



Series: Shout At The Devil [2]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: BAMF Nancy Wheeler, Blood and Injury, Caretaking, F/M, Hurt Steve Harrington, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Protective Billy Hargrove, Protective Joyce Byers, Protective Steve Harrington, Secret Relationship, The Upside Down, monster hunting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:21:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29936793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriterWhoWrites/pseuds/WriterWhoWrites
Summary: (January 11, 1985)That past November, after setting the tunnels on fire and exorcising a monster out of Will, Nancy had poured them a shot of vodka and toasted to saving the world and to the hope that they would never have to do it again.Really, they should have known that things would never resolve that neatly. Maybe they did on some level.Or: El closed the Gate. But things from The Upside Down are still managing to slip through.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove & Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Billy Hargrove & Nancy Wheeler, Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington, Jonathan Byers & Billy Hargrove & Steve Harrington & Nancy Wheeler, Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler, Maxine "Max" Mayfield/Lucas Sinclair, Steve Harrington & Dustin Henderson
Series: Shout At The Devil [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1729687
Comments: 12
Kudos: 46





	Night Shift

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is the first one-shot of my series "Shout At The Devil". Definitely read the first installment, Jump In The Fire, before reading this for that sweet, sweet context. 
> 
> Or don't. I'm not your babysitter.
> 
> Content warnings: Reference to a real-life mass shooting (the San Ysidro McDonald's massacre of 1984), talk about guns, character injury (nothing serious or life-threatening), referenced child abuse
> 
> Title comes from the song "Night Shift" by Siouxsie and the Banshees

That past November, after setting the tunnels on fire and exorcising a monster out of Will, Nancy had poured them a shot of vodka and toasted to saving the world and to the hope that they would never have to do it again.

Really, they should have known that things would never resolve that neatly. Maybe they did on some level.

That week had been pretty great. Billy had secured a gig tutoring some rich middle school kid who was having trouble in school—bad study habits. So Billy had spent Tuesday and Thursday guiding the kid through making vocab flashcards and teaching him how to organize his notes for social studies. The kid's mom had offered Billy forty dollars per session and had requested his services twice a week. He didn't particularly like the kid—he was kind of a brat—but he wasn't dumb enough to turn down making eighty dollars every week. 

It helped that the kid lived down the street from Steve. Having sex twice in a week was definitely beneficial to his overall mood. 

His dad didn't hit him that week; didn't even raise his voice at him. 

It was a Friday night. Earlier that day, Billy and Steve had a basketball game against Christ The King High School. They lost, but not by much, and it didn't really matter since there weren't any college scouts in the stands. They weren't sweating it. Quite the opposite, in fact. They were hanging out in the Byers' living room with Nancy and Jonathan. Jonathan had put on a Clash tape and Steve was shuffling a deck of cards so they could play poker. Mrs. Byers was at work. The kids—Will, Mike, Dustin, Lucas, and Max—were in the backyard. El wasn't there; according to Mike, she had a nasty cold and had to stay home. 

"It's so weird that she has super powers and gets knocked down because of a cold," Jonathan mused. 

"Nah, that makes total sense," Steve said as he started to deal the cards. "I mean, she was raised in a sterile lab, wasn't she? What kind of immune system could she possibly develop in that kind of environment?"

Billy couldn't help but smile a little at that. People underestimated Steve. They assumed he was stupid because he was popular, and confident, and hot, and kind of goofy sometimes. And yeah, his grades were nothing special, but when it came to certain topics, like biology (the one class he had a solid A in) and health, his boyfriend was pretty brilliant. 

His boyfriend. Billy loved that he could call Steve his boyfriend. Not like he said it out loud that often, or even said it out loud to anyone but Steve. But when he thought of Steve—and he thought of Steve pretty much every second of every day—he was able to also think of the word _boyfriend_ and honestly, that was better than anything Billy could have hoped for. It made his insides tingle in this really pleasant way. He felt like a fuckin' thirteen year old girl with this shit. But to be fair, Steve was his _first boyfriend_. 

And in the grand tradition of lovestruck teenagers, Billy hoped against hope that Steve would be his _only_ boyfriend. 

They were about to make their first bets when the door slammed open and five eighth-graders rushed into the house. Nancy, Jonathan, Steve, and Billy's heads snapped up simultaneously.

"There's something in the woods," Mike blurted out. 

No one moved or said anything. Billy could feel his pulse in his fingertips. 

"What kind of something?" Nancy asked. Nancy knew what kind of something; Billy could tell by the tone of her voice. 

"Like a _bad_ something," Mike said. 

"Like an Upside Down something," Dustin added. 

Billy looked at Max. She was visibly freaked out, standing stiffly with her arms folding across her chest. Billy was reminded grimly of that night they had a demodog in the backyard. 

"What did it look like?" Billy asked her. "Was it a demodog?"

"I don't know," Max admitted. "We didn't see it. We just heard it."

"You sure it wasn't just an owl or something?" Jonathan said. 

"It wasn't an owl," Will said. His eyes were wide and dark. He was shivering.

After everything that kid had been through, Billy didn't blame him for one second for being scared shitless. Billy was sure that if anything like what had happened to Will ever happened to him, he would never want to leave the house ever again. Maybe not even get out of bed. Billy had some bad things happen to him, sure. Some objectively horrible things. But everything that had ever happened to him had happened at the hands of other humans; not inter-dimensional monsters. 

Billy, Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan looked at each other. Without any further discussion, they got up and followed the kids out the door. 

* * *

They made a pitstop at the Byers' shed to grab some flashlights. Billy grabbed the axe he used the night they went down into the tunnels; Jonathan also grabbed an axe. Nancy took a shotgun off the workbench and expertly loaded it, pocketing a few shells. 

Billy didn't think he would ever get over how many guns he had seen since living in Indiana. He had been there for less than a year and had already seen more firearms than he ever had in his entire life. His father did not own a gun. No one he knew in San Diego had owned a gun. Sure, there were people in the bad parts of the city with guns, but Billy and Max had grown up in a more suburban area and whenever they went into the city proper, they never had reason to go into the more seedy areas. 

The only time he had ever actually thought about guns was back in July, when that man had shot up a McDonalds in San Ysidro and killed 21 people. 

Billy's dad had said that the man had used a military-grade weapon. 

Billy had never even held a gun, let alone learn how to shoot one. According to Steve and Jonathan, Nancy was an excellent shot. Maybe she could teach him how to shoot sometime. Billy didn't really want to learn how. But he figured, at this point, he probably should. 

After the shed, they stopped at Steve's car so that he could retrieve his bat from his car. And then, their merry band of weirdos went off into the woods behind the Byers' house. 

Mike and Will led the pack, with Nancy and Jonathan by their sides. Max and Lucas walked together, following closely behind. Billy and Steve walked in the back, accompanied by Dustin, who was sticking close to Steve's side. 

"What do you mean?" Billy heard Jonathan ask Will. "Did you hear something or not?"

"I heard it," Will answered, so softly that Billy could barely hear him. "We all heard it. But before we heard anything, I...I felt something."

"What does that mean? Like one of your 'now-memories'?"

"No," Will said. "You know when you...when you know someone's in the room with you before you turn around and see them? It was like that."

"You guys seriously don't think we should call El?" Lucas said. 

"She's _sick_ ," Max pointed out.

"So?" Lucas protested. "She has super powers! It's just a cold; how bad could it be?"

"Big talk for someone who cried over a scraped knee last week," Max shot back.

Billy hid his laugh under a forced cough. He really didn't know what the deal was between Max and Lucas. He knew they kissed at the Snow Ball and he knew that Max liked him. He also knew that Max found him deeply irritating at times. He was so relieved that Max was the type of girl to call people on their shit instead of just passively accepting it. 

Lucas said something back to Max; Billy didn't catch it, but it made Max huff and walk away from him. Just a bit further away from the group that Billy was comfortable with. 

"Max," Billy said loudly. "Stay where I can see you."

Max rolled her eyes. But she fell back in, still next to Lucas, but staying about two feet away from him. 

Dustin was talking Steve's ear off about some girl in his math class. As if now was the time and place for that. Steve, bless him, was humoring the kid and listening to him go on and on, interjecting with the occasional "oh yeah?" and "oh wow." 

Steve was an only child. Dustin was also an only child. They were the only ones in their group that didn't have a sibling, biological or otherwise. It kind of made sense that they formed the bond that they had. 

"Will?" Jonathan suddenly said. 

Will had stopped in his tracks. His face was frozen in fear and his breath was heavy. 

"Will, do you feel it?" Mike asked. 

Billy felt the faintest tremble in the ground below him. He wasn't the only one; Max and Lucas were looking down on the ground. Billy heard the soft sound of fallen leaves rustling. He tightened his grip on the axe. 

And then, a sharp trilling sound pierced the silence. 

Dustin pointed at the ground at something and yelled out. Steve shoved him out of the way hard to get at whatever Dustin was pointing to. But before Steve could hit whatever it was with his bat, he screamed and fell to the ground, like something had dragged him down. 

" _Steve!_ " Nancy screamed. 

The Thing, in the dim light of their flashlights, looked like a vine. No—a tentacle. Like an octopus. It had wrapped itself around Steve's right leg and was trying to drag him away, towards an opening in the ground. 

Billy didn't remember starting his next action. Adrenaline was pumping through his veins. He was vaguely aware that he yelled out some sort of expletive. But the next thing that he was keenly aware of was that he was bringing his axe down over and over again on the tentacle. It shrieked and trilled from a mouth they couldn't even see, and tightened it's grip on Steve's leg as Steve tried to pull away. 

" _Get off him, you fucker!_ " Billy screamed.

Nancy pointed her shotgun, aiming at the opening in the ground; the tentacle was attached to something bigger and bulbous that was just peeking out over the edge. She shot at it. The creature shrieked again. Jonathan joined Billy in hacking away at the thing; the kids were gripping Steve's arms, trying to pull him away, or at least prevent him from getting any closer to the opening. 

Nancy shot the thing again. Black goo squirted out of the bullet wound. Billy brought the axe down one last time. It severed the tentacle close to Steve's leg. A terrible shriek filled the forest, sending a chill down Billy's spine. The tentacle was quickly retracted into the opening, like it was a string that someone was pulling. Part of it, the severed portion, was still wrapped around Steve's leg, attached to his skin. Billy dropped to his knees and tugged it off, trying his best to be gentle. The thing was cold and slimy and still. When it was completely off of Steve's leg, Billy threw it to the ground. They all watched in horror as the thing sizzled and dissolved before their eyes. The opening in the ground sealed up. 

It was quiet.

"Steve," Dustin said urgently. "Steve are you okay?"

"Yeah," Steve said shakily. "Yeah I think so."

"Oh my God, your leg."

"I'm okay, Dustin. Really."

"Hey," Billy said softly, kneeling next to him. Steve was pale and shaking. His leg was covered in dirt and creature goo. Billy wanted to touch his face and run his fingers through his hair; he gently squeezed his shoulder instead. "Can you stand up?"

Steve nodded, taking deep breaths. Billy grabbed his arm and helped him stand. Steve leaned into the support Billy provided. Billy wanted to hug him. Wanted to hold him. 

He needed to tend to his wounds and see how bad they were in the light. 

Jonathan came up on Steve's other side. Together, he and Billy supported Steve as they group moved quickly back to the house. 

* * *

"Do you have a first aid kit?" Billy asked Jonathan as soon as they got in the door. 

"Yeah, it's the bathroom," Jonathan nodded. "Under the sink."

Dustin rushed ahead of them towards the bathroom. Steve leaned against the wall for a minute, steadying himself. He looked up at Billy and gave him a quick smile. It did absolutely nothing to quell Billy's worry. His mind was filled with all of the horrible possibilities: that Steve was maybe going to need actual medical attention; thoughts of infections and bacteria and venom; the fact that they were still dealing with fucking monsters.

The fact that Steve could have died that night. 

"Meet me in the bathroom?" Steve muttered. 

"Yeah, of course," Billy nodded. He watched Steve walk over to the bathroom. He wasn't limping as badly as he was before. 

The kids, minus Dustin, were huddled in the living room, trying to calm down. Trying to calm _Will_ down; Will looked like he wanted to disappear away from the attention. Nancy was at the kitchen table, scribbling furiously in a notebook. 

"What are you doing?" Jonathan asked her. 

"Writing everything down," she said, not looking up. "I don't want to forget a single detail of this. We need to remember _everything_ because we _know_ this is going to happen again."

Billy filled a glass with tap water and walked to the bathroom. Steve was splashing water on his face. Dustin was rambling about disinfecting wounds and getting sutures and taking things out of the first aid kit and setting them on the edge of the bathtub. Steve was tense; Billy could tell from his posture and the way he was setting his jaw. Dustin was _not_ helping Steve relax. And Steve was not about to tell him to go away. 

"I got this, Dustin," Billy said, forcing himself to smile at the kid. Dustin raised his eyebrows at him in disbelief. 

"Do you even know how to properly care for a wound?" he asked incredulously. 

"I do actually," Billy said lightly, making a concerted effort not to snap at him. 

"Steve," Dustin said in protest. As if Steve was going to tell Billy to buzz off and let Dustin take care of his injuries. 

"He knows first aid," Steve said, still bent over the sink. His hands were gripping the sides. He turned to look at Dustin and offer up a small smile. "Why don't you go see if Will needs anything, bud, okay? I promise I'm fine."

Dustin opened his mouth like he was going to say something else, and then closed it. He gave Billy one more look and walked out of the bathroom. Billy closed the door and set the glass of water down by the sink. He put a hand on Steve's back, between his shoulder blades, feeling him breathe. 

"You okay?" Billy asked softly. Steve took a deep breath and straightened up. Billy pulled him into a hug; Steve wrapped his arms around his waist and leaned into him heavily, resting his face on his shoulder.They stood there for a minute, just quietly holding each other and breathing together. Billy felt Steve relax a bit. 

"Let's take a look at your leg, baby, okay?" Billy murmured in his ear.

Steve nodded against his shoulder. He pulled away and sat on the closed toilet. Billy grabbed a washcloth and soaked it with water. He knelt in from of Steve and rolled his pant leg up. The bleeding had already stopped. As gently as he could, Billy started cleaning the affected area, running from his ankle to his lower calf. The dirt came off easily; the creature goo and Steve's blood had dried and took a little bit more pressure to wipe away. 

Once the area was clean, Steve's injuries didn't look that bad. There weren't any puncture wounds or bite marks, like there had been when Billy had been bitten by the demodog. Steve's leg just had a bunch of scrapes where the tentacle had wrapped around it. It was weird, but Billy wasn't complaining. He grabbed a few cotton pads and the bottle of hydrogen peroxide from the bathtub's edge. 

"This is gonna sting," Billy warned. 

"Bring it on," Steve said with a wry smile. 

Billy got to work on disinfecting the scrapes. Steve hissed and flinched when Billy got to rawest-looking one. Billy paused what he was doing. 

"Sorry," he said. He kissed Steve's knee, as if that would help anything.

"It's okay," Steve said. He brushed a lock of hair away from Billy's face. 

" _Fuck_ ," Steve then groaned. He buried his head in his hands. " _Jesus fucking Christ_."

Billy put the peroxide and cotton pad down. He put his hands on Steve's thighs, gently stroking his thumbs there. Steve's breaths were shaky again. 

"That thing almost got Dustin," Steve said, his voice small and muffled behind his hands. 

"It didn't," Billy reminded him. He reached one arm up to stroke Steve's hair. _That thing almost killed **you**_ , Billy thought.

"It _could have_ though," Steve said, uncovering his face to look at Billy. His eyes were wet. "It almost did. _Fuck_!"

Billy sat up a little so he could be eye-level with Steve. He pressed his forehead against his, cradling his head. 

"It didn't though. You stopped that from happening, baby," Billy whispered. "Dustin's okay because of you."

He kissed Steve's forehead. His cheek. His lips. He continued to stroke Steve's hair as his breathing evened out. 

"I love that kid," Steve said quietly. "I like all those little shits, but...but Dustin's like...God, he's like a little brother to me, you know?" 

"Totally," Billy nodded. 

"He _trusts_ me," Steve said. "I can't let him down, Billy, I can't _do_ that to him."

"You didn't," Billy assured him. He kissed him again. Wiped away the tears that had trailed down Steve's cheeks. 

"Dustin trusts you, babe," he said. "He fuckin' worships the ground you walk on."

Steve let out small, watery laugh. Billy wrapped his arms around him again. Steve hugged him back tight.

* * *

Joyce walked into her house after a long shift expecting to see a houseful of kids and teenagers doing whatever it was kids did these days. 

And she _did_ walk into a houseful of kids. But she also walked in and saw three goo-covered weapons leaning against the wall. Her blood froze. 

"Everyone is okay," was the first thing that Jonathan said when she walked in the door and took in the scene. "That's the most important thing. Everyone is okay."

"Steve's hurt," Dustin spoke up.

"Where is he?" Joyce asked when she found her voice. 

"He's in the bathroom. Billy's helping him out," Jonathan said calmly. "Mom, he's okay, I promise."

Joyce dropped her keys and purse on the floor and sped down the hall. Steve was a good kid. He was _now_ anyway. He and Jonathan had gotten close over the last year or so. Joyce was _so relieved_ that Jonathan finally had a friend his age. As far as she could tell, Billy was a good kid too, even under his whole "rock 'n roll, screw the authorities" persona. 

Hop had been the same way when he was Billy's age.

She opened the bathroom door without knocking first. She didn't usually do that. The vast majority of the time, she knocked on her sons' doors before going into their rooms—it was basic respect. But this time was different.

Billy was on his knees in front of Steve, who was sitting on the closed toilet seat. Both of their heads shot up at the sound. Billy's hands, holding a bandaid, was paused an inch away from Steve's leg. 

"Are you okay?" Joyce asked. 

"I'm okay," Steve nodded with a smile. "Just a couple of scrapes."

"What about you, Billy?" Joyce fixed her eyes on him. He was tense. Like she had caught him in the act of doing something wrong. She hadn't known Billy for very long, but she had already seen him tense up at certain things enough times to establish a pattern. Things like sudden noises and people approaching him from behind. Being in the same room as Hop. She felt a sudden stab of guilt for barging in on them like she had.

"I'm okay, Mrs. Byers," he said.

Joyce nodded. 

"I'll leave you boys to it, then," she said. 

As she turned to leave, she saw, out of the corner of her eye, Steve reach his arm out and touch Billy's hair. 

Five minutes later, she was sitting in the living room with all of the kids: Jonathan, Will, Mike, Lucas, Dustin, Steve, Nancy, Max, and Billy. She warmed her hands on a mug of chamomile tea that Nancy handed to her 

(Nancy was another good one; Joyce had loved her even before she had started dating her son)

and held back her tears as the kids told her what had happened that night. Joyce's eyes bounced from one kid to the next. Nancy and Jonathan were sitting thigh-to-thigh with each other. Will was on Jonathan's other side and Mike, in turn, was next to Will. Steve and Dustin sat close together—when Dustin told her about how Steve had pushed him out of the way of whatever horror was still in Hawkins, Steve patted him on the shoulder, almost absentmindedly. Billy was perched on the arm of the sofa, next to Dustin, his gaze moving back and forth from Steve to his sister, Max, and Lucas, who were sitting together on the floor with their fingertips touching. 

Steve's injuries weren't serious. Everyone was okay, physically at least. Nancy had written up a detailed account of everything—Joyce was going to make a copy and give it to Hop the next day. 

Monsters from the Upside Down were still able to break through to their world. Joyce couldn't even begin to think of ways to stop them once and for all. 

But for now, everyone was safe. And that was all that mattered to Joyce. 

**Author's Note:**

> Next up: 
> 
> "Is There Something I Should Know?"
> 
> (Wednesday, January 23—Saturday, January 26, 1985)


End file.
